In Japanese, if you want to say for example 'I don't know if he is big' you'd say 'takai ka dou ka wakaranai', which breaks down as 'be.big QUESTION how QUESTION know-not', so it literally means something like 'I don't know he is big or what?', and 'ka dou ka' has become like a single phrase that indicates the sense of 'whether', but only in this construction. So yeah, it's really cool what languages can come up with.
It's like the tunisian one "mnw9tech" (the nine represents the /q/ sound) which literally means "from-time-what" (mn-w9t-ech) but it actually means since (in a question form)
At around 26:30 you mention that the /k/ and /q/ don't go well together, and it just reminded me of Artifexian's video on consonant harmony, so you could use Dorsal consonant harmony to get rid of any instances where /q/ and /k/ appear in neighbouring syllables.
I find it very interesting how in Hungarian the interrogative clitic “-e” (yes, written with the hyphen) seems to have evolved from people saying stuff like “That’s a nice sheep, eh?” and it was just grammaticalised Szép-e az a juh?
Re: yes/no interrogatives at 20:28 , you touch at it at 21:55, but something like the word "czy" in Polish, it means "if/whether" in its raw sense, but you put it at the front of a statement, it turns it into a closed question expecting a yes/no response. Jej syn je chleb. => Her son eats bread. Czy jej syn je chleb? => Does her son eat bread? Kiedy jej syn je chleb? => `When` does her son eat bread? ('czy' is absent, it's an open question). Zrobię kanapki, czy(/jeśli?) jej syn zje chleb. => I will make sandwiches if her son eats bread. Could be a fun little thing to lump into a sentence structure, especially as this language is using agglutinative factors. Just throwing in that there is precedent in proto-slavic langs, but I don't want it to get all kitchen-sinky. Taking shape!!
True, but I think that this Polish thing comes from "or" (for questions with excluding answers) meaning so like "Tak czy nie?" (Yes or no?), "Chcesz jeść pizzę czy chleb" (Do you want to eat pizza or bread?). And that this "if/whether" meaning could come from that - like it would be basiclly the same kind of conjuction like gdzie/kiedy/który (where/when/which)
Some corrections Kiedy translates to When, not How And I'm not sure what You mean by this czy(,jeśli?) If You mean that those two words are interchangeble in this context, than thats not the case. Only the word "jeśli" means "if" But apart from that everything is correct
@@fractal_fantasymc2197 thank you for this- I think kiedy might have been a typo from thinking 2 things at once. Aside from that I'm not a native speaker, so the Poles I know probably give me a lot of grace filed under "aww he's trying" lol Was really just trying to showcase the concept. I know it's not the only language that does stuff like this, but closed questions being marked / open not marked is sorta cool, and something I flirted with in my own conlanging shenanigans back when.
At around 29:15 you talk about "or" necessarily having something following it, but that's not the case in german questions! "Ich hab' das gemacht, oder?" (lit. "I have done that, or?") is a perfectly natural phrase, at least where I live.
These a similar use case in english with a trailing "or", such as in "Do you need my help with that, or?". The negative is implied, so it paves the way to yes/no questions
@@insanecreeper9000 How widespread is that actually? The only times I've encountered it, it was accompanied by a long "ooooorr", a deliberate pause after it and usually an expectant facial expression. There's clearly supposed to be something following the "or", you're just inviting the other person to fill it in themselves with many verbal and non-verbal cues. And the thing you're alluding to doesn't necessarily have to be a simple negative, it could be a previously discussed alternative. So to me it seems different from the german version because adding "oder?" is the standard, most productive way for me to ask a yes/no question with a presumed answer (yes if the statement was positive, no if it was negated). It probably formed through ellipsis from "oder nicht?" (which is another common way of expressing the same thing) but no trace of the "nicht" remains. Let's put it this way: I could pretty easily see "oder?" completely replace "oder nicht?", leading to a language that productively uses just their equivalent of "or" to mark polar questions. English seems very far from that to me. Of course there's a huge amount of variation between english speakers and -especially as someone who's not a native speaker - I of course don't make any claim to authority, this is just my casual observation.
@Lünkel Native English speaker speaking from personal experience and observed patterns. No formal knowledge on the topic. A trailing 'or?' is usually either stretched, becoming 'oor?', or it is followed by a pause, becoming 'or..?'. This is because, typicically, the trailing 'or' is a direct substitute for 'or not?', which is avoided. Using the 'or not?' construction either implies a negative, similar to 'I could help you if you say you want me to, but I'd rather not.', or it becomes a demand, similar to, 'If you want my help, tell me now, because I'll be gone in a few seconds if not.'. You'll commonly see this latter construction, 'or not?' as a demand in arguments, or if the person asking the question is in a hurry and needs the answer immediately. On occasion, the floating 'or?' is instead used when there are multiple possible outcomes, and you're not sure which one is preferred. For example, if someone is cooking, while trying to do dishes, and manage a crying baby, I might say 'Would you like help with that, or?', meaning, 'Would you like help with that (whatever it is you're doing right now), or with one of these other tasks I can see you need help with.' In this way, the person that I'm asking can tell me which task to address, either by replying 'Yes', or '(Yes, No, Err, or other paticulate). Could you do (other task).' As you can see, in all three cases, using a trailing 'or?' is a substitute for a more complex and complete statement, but the rest of the statement is ommited either to change the tone of the question, or to give the person being addressed the option to reply in a way of their choosing. I hope that my explination is understandable.
This is probably my favorite youtube channel. I love languages and world building and I always enjoy seeing Biblaridion's work. The long waits are even enjoyable in their own way because it is a great excuse to rewatch the series after every couple of new episodes.
It seems odd that the noun sleeper should have such an old declension, so that the noun is so different from the root verb. Unless there was a strong cultural reason to have a word derived from 'sleeper' wouldn't one expect a more recent, predictable declension?
Could be some kind of god, like Cthulhu (Could be nice to hear "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming" translated xD) or messianic figure like that knight/king sleeping until he wakes up in the time of need, which exists in 90% of European countries. Also it could have meaning of dreamer (In Polish noun "sen" stands for both action of sleeping and nightdream), maybe some kind of shaman by extension Edit: Also he was aiming for three consonantal root, so something that would seem extreme in more typical language may turn out to be just typical vowel arrangement with suffix in many cases Edit2: Now I though that sleeper can mean sometging like lover, concubine, prostitute or even spouse (a person that one sleeps with). Then a sentence "The sleeper loves her child" would be a typical introduction for harem intrigues
So the "can"/"can't" distinction for Americans is exaggerated slightly to make it easier through differences in length for both stressed and unstressed forms. When stressed, "can" is longer than "can't" (and is distinguished more in tone as well, because it's so unusual to stress it). When unstressed, "can" is so short it's almost just [kn], while "can't" retains a clear vowel. It's still pretty subtle, but it ensures the distinction is more than just a glottal stop, because you're right: they would be frequently confused otherwise.
As for crucial info conveyed by minor differences - I don't think it's common in English, but in vernacular Polish it's almost default to form yes/no questions just by intonation (spoken) or a question mark at the end (written): "Pływał w jeziorze." - He was swimming in the lake. "Pływał w jeziorze?" - Was he swimming in the lake? "Czy pływał w jeziorze?" - Was he swimming in the lake? (but quite formal)
Great work! I'm interested in learning more of your conlang project. I'm sure it'll come out unique, similar to real life language yet also obviously different.
For the sound-changing program, David J Peterson created a solution in LangTime Studio episode 104 for dealing with stress shifts. It's around 23 minutes in. He uses Zompist, which might be different from what you use, but I think it could still be applicable
for american can/cant, i would say it's more an unreleased [t̚] than a true [ʔ]. in isolation there's little difference between those two but sometimes the unrelease-ness of the [t̚] can become released in the context of the next word, in a weird sort of "liason". compare "he cant" [hi kænt̚] with "can he?" [kæn hi] (or sometimes swalloing the /h/ --> [kæni] (a sort of "can he-canny" merger lol)) and with "cant he?". In the first the /t/ is properly unreleased, sounding damn close to [nʔ], but in the latter the [tʰ] is most definitely released, frequently with a swallowing of the /h/ altogether (or, one might say, merging with the aspiration of /t/), resulting in something like [kæntʰi], a distinctly "stronger" [tʰ] than the unreleased/"glottal" in an isolated-yet-casual "cant".
Same to me but i borrowed words from english, german, french and arabic. Howrver it has also its own featural words like "buro" (sea), "cělgus* (obvious), "skedemor" (exist), "õleẹ" (woman), "ŭlẻgäm" (surely) ... A sample sentence: Đ'õleẹ é šúruš ne demedú úno buro cělgus, ŭlẻgäm /ðʊ̃leʔ eʰ ʃurœʃ ne demedu uno bœro sˁaˀlɡœs œˀlyɡɛm/
34:36 For my dialect in the US, I stress "can't" as cannot, can't' (with the ejective), or the full phrase, "No, I can't". I don't think I rely on just the glottal stop in rapid speech if I have to stress it.
34:37 I actually do change the vowel quality in can/can't with can being like [kʰɛn~kʰɪn] and can't being [kʰænt̚], also the /t/isn't a glottal stop for me, it is just unreleased so it sounds almost identical to just the /n/ on its own
I think for our own languages, we see every word as a given default, but for languages we're unfamiliar with, we tend to perceive a word as a series of phonemes hinting at a meaning. I know that that second concept is basically the definition of a word, but it's different, less like a real word. At least for me, other languages besides English and Spanish feel so unstable and precarious, while English (my first language) feels incredibly given and Spanish (which I've spoken since I was six) is somewhere in between. As I learn Mandarin, I can feel that significant difference and it's taken me a while to realize just how ingrained my own brain is in its first language. Anyway, I think that's why /kan/ vs /kaʔ/ (w/ prenasalized ʔ) manages to hold up, and why "unstable" constructions in other languages exist. It's just such an easy given for the fluent, especially native, speakers.
Concidering a lot of languages only mark yes/no questions with intonation and context, I'm sure it won't be a problem if it sounds a bit like the reportative.
on the Stability of /kæn/ vs /kæn(ʔ)/, at least the way my dialect treats it, is something like a mora difference, whereas in 'can' the 'A' and the 'N' each have there own beat, in 'can't' the whole word it only only given a single beat.
30:10 I think "thus, therefore" would be better suited for conjectural or rhetorical interrogatives, and "maybe" better fit for the regular yes/no questions but that's just me
Also, I've just noticed that you allophonically pronounce all the long vowels in the conlang with creaky voice, is this intentional or just something you do subconsciously?
Great video, although most people prefer just the series about alien biosphere I started to see other of your videos and I liked them too, keep it up 😎👌
29:20 I think Swedes use "eller" ("or") as a kind of interogative, and in that case it sounds like unfinished question. Say "You like apples or ... [not? something else?]". Like they are too "lazy" to finish the sentece
Your word building seems a bit too focused on every form being "pretty", for lack of a better word. I don't know, it just seems unlikely that every word in the language and every ending would conform to your sense of "really nice" sounding words. I understand for the most common words you want them to sound nice, but some words are just naturally ugly.
In Japanese, if you want to say for example 'I don't know if he is big' you'd say 'takai ka dou ka wakaranai', which breaks down as 'be.big QUESTION how QUESTION know-not', so it literally means something like 'I don't know he is big or what?', and 'ka dou ka' has become like a single phrase that indicates the sense of 'whether', but only in this construction. So yeah, it's really cool what languages can come up with.
It's like the tunisian one "mnw9tech" (the nine represents the /q/ sound) which literally means "from-time-what" (mn-w9t-ech) but it actually means since (in a question form)
Isn't 分からない more like "Understand-NEG" instead of "Know-NEG"?
At around 26:30 you mention that the /k/ and /q/ don't go well together, and it just reminded me of Artifexian's video on consonant harmony, so you could use Dorsal consonant harmony to get rid of any instances where /q/ and /k/ appear in neighbouring syllables.
I find it very interesting how in Hungarian the interrogative clitic “-e” (yes, written with the hyphen) seems to have evolved from people saying stuff like “That’s a nice sheep, eh?” and it was just grammaticalised
Szép-e az a juh?
The "isn't it" thing crops up in a few spoken varieties of English, but more usually as "innit". It gets used as a tag in a similar manner to "right".
Re: yes/no interrogatives at 20:28 , you touch at it at 21:55, but something like the word "czy" in Polish, it means "if/whether" in its raw sense, but you put it at the front of a statement, it turns it into a closed question expecting a yes/no response.
Jej syn je chleb. => Her son eats bread.
Czy jej syn je chleb? => Does her son eat bread?
Kiedy jej syn je chleb? => `When` does her son eat bread? ('czy' is absent, it's an open question).
Zrobię kanapki, czy(/jeśli?) jej syn zje chleb. => I will make sandwiches if her son eats bread.
Could be a fun little thing to lump into a sentence structure, especially as this language is using agglutinative factors.
Just throwing in that there is precedent in proto-slavic langs, but I don't want it to get all kitchen-sinky.
Taking shape!!
True, but I think that this Polish thing comes from "or" (for questions with excluding answers) meaning so like "Tak czy nie?" (Yes or no?), "Chcesz jeść pizzę czy chleb" (Do you want to eat pizza or bread?). And that this "if/whether" meaning could come from that - like it would be basiclly the same kind of conjuction like gdzie/kiedy/który (where/when/which)
Thanks for my Polish lesson for the day. I don't feel bad for not doing anything else Polish related for the day lol
Some corrections
Kiedy translates to When, not How
And I'm not sure what You mean by this czy(,jeśli?)
If You mean that those two words are interchangeble in this context, than thats not the case. Only the word "jeśli" means "if"
But apart from that everything is correct
@@fractal_fantasymc2197 thank you for this- I think kiedy might have been a typo from thinking 2 things at once.
Aside from that I'm not a native speaker, so the Poles I know probably give me a lot of grace filed under "aww he's trying" lol
Was really just trying to showcase the concept. I know it's not the only language that does stuff like this, but closed questions being marked / open not marked is sorta cool, and something I flirted with in my own conlanging shenanigans back when.
@@fractal_fantasymc2197 czy means "if" in context like "I dont know if he is right" - "Nie wiem, czy ma racje". So that's correct
At around 29:15 you talk about "or" necessarily having something following it, but that's not the case in german questions!
"Ich hab' das gemacht, oder?" (lit. "I have done that, or?") is a perfectly natural phrase, at least where I live.
These a similar use case in english with a trailing "or", such as in "Do you need my help with that, or?". The negative is implied, so it paves the way to yes/no questions
@@insanecreeper9000 How widespread is that actually? The only times I've encountered it, it was accompanied by a long "ooooorr", a deliberate pause after it and usually an expectant facial expression. There's clearly supposed to be something following the "or", you're just inviting the other person to fill it in themselves with many verbal and non-verbal cues. And the thing you're alluding to doesn't necessarily have to be a simple negative, it could be a previously discussed alternative.
So to me it seems different from the german version because adding "oder?" is the standard, most productive way for me to ask a yes/no question with a presumed answer (yes if the statement was positive, no if it was negated). It probably formed through ellipsis from "oder nicht?" (which is another common way of expressing the same thing) but no trace of the "nicht" remains. Let's put it this way: I could pretty easily see "oder?" completely replace "oder nicht?", leading to a language that productively uses just their equivalent of "or" to mark polar questions. English seems very far from that to me.
Of course there's a huge amount of variation between english speakers and -especially as someone who's not a native speaker - I of course don't make any claim to authority, this is just my casual observation.
@Lünkel Native English speaker speaking from personal experience and observed patterns. No formal knowledge on the topic.
A trailing 'or?' is usually either stretched, becoming 'oor?', or it is followed by a pause, becoming 'or..?'. This is because, typicically, the trailing 'or' is a direct substitute for 'or not?', which is avoided. Using the 'or not?' construction either implies a negative, similar to 'I could help you if you say you want me to, but I'd rather not.', or it becomes a demand, similar to, 'If you want my help, tell me now, because I'll be gone in a few seconds if not.'. You'll commonly see this latter construction, 'or not?' as a demand in arguments, or if the person asking the question is in a hurry and needs the answer immediately.
On occasion, the floating 'or?' is instead used when there are multiple possible outcomes, and you're not sure which one is preferred. For example, if someone is cooking, while trying to do dishes, and manage a crying baby, I might say 'Would you like help with that, or?', meaning, 'Would you like help with that (whatever it is you're doing right now), or with one of these other tasks I can see you need help with.' In this way, the person that I'm asking can tell me which task to address, either by replying 'Yes', or '(Yes, No, Err, or other paticulate). Could you do (other task).'
As you can see, in all three cases, using a trailing 'or?' is a substitute for a more complex and complete statement, but the rest of the statement is ommited either to change the tone of the question, or to give the person being addressed the option to reply in a way of their choosing.
I hope that my explination is understandable.
@@ILikeGoodFood Yea, that seems to match my own perception pretty well. Thank you!
@@insanecreeper9000 Haha, jk jk. Unless...?
I love how this conlang sounds so natural without sounding like any already existing language on earth
This is probably my favorite youtube channel. I love languages and world building and I always enjoy seeing Biblaridion's work. The long waits are even enjoyable in their own way because it is a great excuse to rewatch the series after every couple of new episodes.
In icelandic we also sometimes say “isn’t it” - “er það ekki” similarly to your friend from shanghai
It seems odd that the noun sleeper should have such an old declension, so that the noun is so different from the root verb. Unless there was a strong cultural reason to have a word derived from 'sleeper' wouldn't one expect a more recent, predictable declension?
Could be some kind of god, like Cthulhu (Could be nice to hear "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming" translated xD) or messianic figure like that knight/king sleeping until he wakes up in the time of need, which exists in 90% of European countries. Also it could have meaning of dreamer (In Polish noun "sen" stands for both action of sleeping and nightdream), maybe some kind of shaman by extension
Edit: Also he was aiming for three consonantal root, so something that would seem extreme in more typical language may turn out to be just typical vowel arrangement with suffix in many cases
Edit2: Now I though that sleeper can mean sometging like lover, concubine, prostitute or even spouse (a person that one sleeps with). Then a sentence "The sleeper loves her child" would be a typical introduction for harem intrigues
So the "can"/"can't" distinction for Americans is exaggerated slightly to make it easier through differences in length for both stressed and unstressed forms. When stressed, "can" is longer than "can't" (and is distinguished more in tone as well, because it's so unusual to stress it). When unstressed, "can" is so short it's almost just [kn], while "can't" retains a clear vowel. It's still pretty subtle, but it ensures the distinction is more than just a glottal stop, because you're right: they would be frequently confused otherwise.
As for crucial info conveyed by minor differences - I don't think it's common in English, but in vernacular Polish it's almost default to form yes/no questions just by intonation (spoken) or a question mark at the end (written):
"Pływał w jeziorze." - He was swimming in the lake.
"Pływał w jeziorze?" - Was he swimming in the lake?
"Czy pływał w jeziorze?" - Was he swimming in the lake? (but quite formal)
Great work! I'm interested in learning more of your conlang project. I'm sure it'll come out unique, similar to real life language yet also obviously different.
For the sound-changing program, David J Peterson created a solution in LangTime Studio episode 104 for dealing with stress shifts. It's around 23 minutes in. He uses Zompist, which might be different from what you use, but I think it could still be applicable
for american can/cant, i would say it's more an unreleased [t̚] than a true [ʔ]. in isolation there's little difference between those two but sometimes the unrelease-ness of the [t̚] can become released in the context of the next word, in a weird sort of "liason". compare "he cant" [hi kænt̚] with "can he?" [kæn hi] (or sometimes swalloing the /h/ --> [kæni] (a sort of "can he-canny" merger lol)) and with "cant he?". In the first the /t/ is properly unreleased, sounding damn close to [nʔ], but in the latter the [tʰ] is most definitely released, frequently with a swallowing of the /h/ altogether (or, one might say, merging with the aspiration of /t/), resulting in something like [kæntʰi], a distinctly "stronger" [tʰ] than the unreleased/"glottal" in an isolated-yet-casual "cant".
I'm creating a language too, but I borrowed many words; for example, I've been to Sweden for 1 week and borrowed words from Swedish and Norwegian. 😂
Same to me but i borrowed words from english, german, french and arabic. Howrver it has also its own featural words like "buro" (sea), "cělgus* (obvious), "skedemor" (exist), "õleẹ" (woman), "ŭlẻgäm" (surely) ...
A sample sentence: Đ'õleẹ é šúruš ne demedú úno buro cělgus, ŭlẻgäm
/ðʊ̃leʔ eʰ ʃurœʃ ne demedu uno bœro sˁaˀlɡœs œˀlyɡɛm/
Forgive me if I am a bit late, but maybe instead of r > l | rV(C)_ you might try a simple r > l intervocalically?
Alien bio !!!!!!
Epicness
34:36 For my dialect in the US, I stress "can't" as cannot, can't' (with the ejective), or the full phrase, "No, I can't". I don't think I rely on just the glottal stop in rapid speech if I have to stress it.
the lack of views on this series is just a testement to the failiures of humanity
34:37 I actually do change the vowel quality in can/can't with can being like [kʰɛn~kʰɪn] and can't being [kʰænt̚], also the /t/isn't a glottal stop for me, it is just unreleased so it sounds almost identical to just the /n/ on its own
Dont think i have any vowel shifting, but i fully agree about the unreleased /t/, i just wrote my own comment about how it's not a true glottal
I think for our own languages, we see every word as a given default, but for languages we're unfamiliar with, we tend to perceive a word as a series of phonemes hinting at a meaning. I know that that second concept is basically the definition of a word, but it's different, less like a real word. At least for me, other languages besides English and Spanish feel so unstable and precarious, while English (my first language) feels incredibly given and Spanish (which I've spoken since I was six) is somewhere in between. As I learn Mandarin, I can feel that significant difference and it's taken me a while to realize just how ingrained my own brain is in its first language.
Anyway, I think that's why /kan/ vs /kaʔ/ (w/ prenasalized ʔ) manages to hold up, and why "unstable" constructions in other languages exist. It's just such an easy given for the fluent, especially native, speakers.
3:00 May I offer: nidhanka and nidhakan which are both perfectly legal and preserve most of the clitic, if in a somewhat more obscured manner
Concidering a lot of languages only mark yes/no questions with intonation and context, I'm sure it won't be a problem if it sounds a bit like the reportative.
Can you make a top 10 list of the best conlangs?
The latin -ne interrogative literally means 'no?'
on the Stability of /kæn/ vs /kæn(ʔ)/, at least the way my dialect treats it, is something like a mora difference, whereas in 'can' the 'A' and the 'N' each have there own beat, in 'can't' the whole word it only only given a single beat.
30:10 I think "thus, therefore" would be better suited for conjectural or rhetorical interrogatives, and "maybe" better fit for the regular yes/no questions but that's just me
So long without bugs... I'm going insane
Huh neat
Also, I've just noticed that you allophonically pronounce all the long vowels in the conlang with creaky voice, is this intentional or just something you do subconsciously?
With regard to the vowel quality in can/can't changing - that highly depends on your dialect of English. For me, it remains the same.
Where you from?
@@JL-ex7yp West Coast
It almost have been half a year since you released alien biospheres part 12, and we really need a part 13 ASAP.
Check his last community post
but also chill out
Otherwise illegal clusters happen in English and German compound words, but compound words are not clitics.
hiihiih
great video!!
Wait the video just released? How do you know it’s great?
because it's a biblaridion video
@@matheussandbakk9959 cuz im from the future
@@CaioRodrigues001 Nice, so did I become famous?
@@matheussandbakk9959 yeah u won the lottery but ended up investing it all in a cruise line for cats that your friend invented
6:18
"then we just get haad"
careful there, bib
Great video, although most people prefer just the series about alien biosphere I started to see other of your videos and I liked them too, keep it up 😎👌
I feel like you're not using very much /b/, and when you are, it's usually [v].
29:20 I think Swedes use "eller" ("or") as a kind of interogative, and in that case it sounds like unfinished question. Say "You like apples or ... [not? something else?]". Like they are too "lazy" to finish the sentece
I believe Germans do something similar, like if you're asking if the apple is really red or not, you can say, "Der Apfel ist wirklich rot, oder?"
Same in English tbh. I think it's sort of combining "conjectural" and "open-ended" questions into one phrase
Danes do that a lot too
Bob is eating way too many sandwiches,...
Despite what others may say, I think alien biospheres is a lovely series
Biblaridion qchihlukhtlothwaa’ !!!
Your word building seems a bit too focused on every form being "pretty", for lack of a better word. I don't know, it just seems unlikely that every word in the language and every ending would conform to your sense of "really nice" sounding words. I understand for the most common words you want them to sound nice, but some words are just naturally ugly.
Hi
wassup